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5 Digital Marketing Tips to Grow Your Beauty Salon Business

Beauty salons, spas, wellness centers, nail salons, and other beauty providers are engaged in a frantic battle in downtown streets, shopping malls or home visits to win customers.

The digital era allows your salon to communicate with more people across a wider area than traditional marketing, but there are so many avenues for marketing.

Here’s how you can compete when it comes to using social media, email and other marketing tools to create a vibrant beauty business.

1. Get Your Business on Maps App

More and more people search Google or Apple Maps for the nearest salon or service to them. An up-to-date entry can show customers your hours, contact details, website and directions to your location. They can also show customers reviews.

2. Collect customer emails and other information

Collect basic customer information and emails for personalized email marketing. Use birthdays or appointment reminders to highlight special offers, new products or treatments

One essential part of the salon market is the power of referrals and you should use marketing emails and other communications to remind people to recommend friends, offering discounts or treats as a reward for the additional business.

3. The power of imagery on social media

Salons and beauty services are perfect for visual marketing. With that in mind, use images with text on Facebook and Twitter to highlight products and treatments, while going into detail on the Instagram and Pinterest to show off processes or start-to-finish examples of your salon’s work.

Instagram is the leading digital inspiration for many salons, and many users search for looks and styles. Beyond Instagram, don’t feel the need to be on every social network or jump on every social fad. Use them wisely and regularly to promote your business, especially during party season or local events, or to promote deals and offers.

Whatever you do, use high-quality images, with a stock of shots taken professionally along with smartphone snaps, selfies and customer pictures that they might want to share.

4. Build an app for total control and greater engagement

No matter the size of your salon or beauty business, apps are becoming a great way to engage with customers. Apps can offer instant booking for appointments, push messaging to highlight the latest offers and location-based services to remind customers as they pass.

There are many ways to build an app, but you can build an app for your salon, requiring no technical or design skills, helping you keep in touch with customers instead of through impersonal emails. You can promote the app in your salon to customers or encourage prospects to install it and book their first appointment on social media, with offers and incentives to keep them coming back.

5. Facebook and other online ads

Many salons might not have the budget for online advertising, but locally targeted ads on Facebook or Google will only appear to your likely customers and can be quite affordable. Facebook Lead Ads provide a pre-filled response form, so you can get a prospect’s details and contact quickly to turn them into a customer.

Use digital marketing to its greatest impact

While your salon business may be small, there are still sizeable gains you can make through a little bit of online marketing effort. You can use an app as part of a loyalty program to encourage repeat business. You can ask your customers to share their beauty results online--perhaps create a selfie-spot in store with great lighting to show off their new look at its best. Build up a bank of positive online reviews.

Whatever the size of your business, it can grow through regular, clever use of online marketing without the need to hire costly experts or spending too much time doing it yourself.

About the Author(s)

Miko Ziemianek is a Digital Marketing Assistant at AppInstitute, the #1 Online App Builder for small businesses. He is responsible for assisting all things marketing and content production.

Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.